Aero frame, similar to the factor ostro, what do you say?

[jakob]

616,39€ | Neue Modell FASTERWAY OSTRO T47 BB Laser Individuelles Farbe Nackt Carbon Malerei Carbon Rennrad Rahmenset + Gabel + Sattelstütze + Clamp + Headset
https://a.aliexpress.com/_EJDZOxn

What do you say to this Frameset, maybe any experiences? Want to build IT Up with the new SRAM Red, any Tips or Suggestions?

[jfcb]

With my personal experience, I would stay away from 'replica' frames. 5 years ago I had a Fasterway (Factor) O2 frame. The paint quality was superb and identical to Factor. However, the ride quality was not the best. For instance it was not the stiffest, but what frightened me the most was the way the frame broke (top tube and headtube) after hitting a curb to hard. Luckily it was not fatal, but it tells me that those frames are not build well.
On the other hand, I hear a lot of flaws from real Factor frames as well.
Have a look at the Longteng RD301-D frame. They have a factor inspired frame in which I would have more confidence. https://chinertown.com/index.php/topic,4792.0.html

[joegal]

With my personal experience, I would stay away from 'replica' frames. 5 years ago I had a Fasterway (Factor) O2 frame. The paint quality was superb and identical to Factor. However, the ride quality was not the best. For instance it was not the stiffest, but what frightened me the most was the way the frame broke (top tube and headtube) after hitting a curb to hard. Luckily it was not fatal, but it tells me that those frames are not build well.
On the other hand, I hear a lot of flaws from real Factor frames as well.
Have a look at the Longteng RD301-D frame. They have a factor inspired frame in which I would have more confidence. https://chinertown.com/index.php/topic,4792.0.html

Do you have pictures of the broken frame? Was the layup particulary bad or thin?

I sometimes think about getting an unbranded fake-frame to evaluate the quality, just for the sake of finding out if all the horror stories about fake frames are true. but your experience might be proof that we all should stay away from those

[Serge_K]

Sounds like i've been in your shoes. I know Factor has a bad reputation for basically everything, but they make pretty bikes.
Ultimately, i went with the LTK268, and couldn't be happier. i built 2. I also built 2 winows, 4 VB, and 1 CarbonSpeed. It's on par with Carbonspeed & better than all the others in terms of tolerances, finish quality, QC, tralala tralala. The 301 didn't exist when i ordered the 268. Alisa is super helpful as a salesrep, and the frame is cheap as chips.
I've put over 7000km on mine, and i just got a bunch of top 10 on downhill segments in french mountains today, so i'm not overly kind on my equipment. i'm 184cm, 81-85kg.
I only have good things to say about the 268, and it looks a LOT like an ostro. It's open mould though.
As a troll at heart, i put TRACTOR decals on one side and FACTEUR on the other. Friends routinely assume i'm riding a superbike. I smoke everyone on the flat / slight downhills, it's not even funny, my friends get mad that i'm going so fast with so little effort. Point being: the frame must be aero when built properly, and can't be a pool noodle otherwise the watts would not reach the ground. I also find the bike very comfortable, but i have a lot of exposed seat post and i'm running 30 & 32C conti gp5000 with tpu tubes on very wide rims, and steel spokes, by design.
Long Teng OEMs for Argon 18. A friend bought an Argon 18 TT bike for a fortune, when i told him how much my bike cost me, he wasn't laughing

My suggestion: depending on how you ride, don't take chances. If you're going to do 150W in South Florida, you could ride anything, it wont matter. But if you're going to find yourself doing 80kmh going into sketchy hairpins, then avoid fakes. especially that ostro fake that has the D shape seatpost. If you look at Peak Torque's video on the Tavelo Arow, you will see that they re basically absolutely pathetic at anything proprietary. And they charge 2k for a frame. So don't assume that a seller selling fakes is going to do wonders with technologies that didn't exist 3y ago (such as that D shaped steerer). Steerers are round, and have been round, for a reason. Most of the crashes we hear about are front end failures, so that area is taking tremendous force. i chose not to buy any bike with a D shaped steerer, because i'm friends with engineers, and if i crash with something like that, they'll laugh at me all the way to the grave.

Also, it feels better to give my business to a factory than to some seller on aliexpress that's dodgy by design. I also like very much that Long Teng's marketing budget is about zero. Your money goes into the frame and the workers. no influencers kick backs, no teams, no ads, no marketing, no fluff. If you know you know.

[jfcb]

Do you have pictures of the broken frame? Was the layup particulary bad or thin?

I sometimes think about getting an unbranded fake-frame to evaluate the quality, just for the sake of finding out if all the horror stories about fake frames are true. but your experience might be proof that we all should stay away from those

Unfortunately I don't have pictures of it anymore since it was about 5 years ago and they were stored on my previous phone. From what I remembered the layup seemed ok, but likely it was either to thin or they used to much high modulus fiber (which is stiff, but not strong). In any case, I accepted that the frame was for the garbage bin and that expecting the same quality from a knock-off is too good to be through. The fact that I race bikes and that I live in the  cobble stoned Belgium makes that I push bikes to the limit.  My case with a 'replica' frame is only n=1, my experience with open mould frames is way larger (road,mtb, gravel all coming from different vendors) and very positive. So that's why I advise you to look at open mould frames that resemble the popular branded frames but have a higher guarantee in providing safe and quality frames. I agree with Serge_k's opinion.